Harry Potter and a Friendly Desert Community
by Travelers' Co
Summary: In which a dementor does something no wizard would ever expect it to do: Kidnap a teenage wizard and take him home with it. This changes everything. Well, not everything, but a lot. Summer before 5th year. Drabbles.
1. A dementor does something strange

The dementor was not a rogue dark creature searching for souls to devour, nor was it an agent of evil sent by death eaters in order to dispose of one Harry Potter, nor was it an emissary of wizard bureaucracy sent to help discredit the boy-who-lived in a complex scheme, as would be theorized by people in the future and alternate dimensions and time lines.

No, this dementor was from a tiny American town in the middle of the desert, and dementors, no, hooded figures, from that little town were used to doing _whatever they wanted,_ even explicitly odd things like kidnapping interesting wizard children.


	2. Welcome to Night Vale Harry

Harry didn't know what had happened. One minute he was trying and failing to cast a patronus charm, and the next he was stumbling through a wrought iron gate into a street he didn't immediately recognize. In the back of his mind, he hazily noted that the dementor had hugged him rather than try to kiss him and suck out his soul. The first words out of his mouth were still, "Am I dead?"

Thankfully, a helpful stranger was on the scene. He introduced himself as Carlos, a scientist. Carlos explained that he had only lived in the town (which was called Night Vale) for a little over a year, so he knew what being a clueless newcomer was like, and could give Harry some helpful hints, if he wanted. Harry was so bewildered, he immediately agreed.

Carlos' advice was less helpful than intended, simply because it just confused Harry even more. He thought the scientist was joshing him at first. Hooded figures, a forbidden dog park he had apparently just stumbled out of, bloodstone circles, secret police, bloodthirsty librarians, a ban on writing utensils? And Harry thought wizards were weird. This place was absolutely insane!

Anyway, after making assurances to someone on his cell phone, Carlos led Harry to an apartment complex and managed to wrangle a contract out of the landlord. He explained that he would have just let Harry stay with him in _his_ apartment, except he 'had a boyfriend, and that kind of environment probably wasn't conducive to raising a teenager.'

Harry was incredibly glad when Hedwig found him a few weeks later, even though his friends' letters were vague and unhelpful.


	3. Learning to Slytherin

Harry Potter learned several valuable lessons in Night Vale that had previously escaped him. The first, and probably most important, was how to pick the battles he fought rather than charge head-first into every potential problem that cropped up. There was so much fear and terror in this tiny town that the wizard had run himself ragged within a week before realizing he simply couldn't continue on the way he had for the previous four years. He had literally been forced to prioritize.

With that new skill came the second lesson, and that was to take care of himself first. It sounded cold, especially to a reckless Gryffindor like him, but if he couldn't look after himself, he wouldn't be able to help anyone else, either.

The final lesson was not 'the ends justify the means,' so much as simply, 'focus on the results, rather than your feelings in the present.' In other words, Harry's inner Slytherin finally had a chance to shine.

By the time he was forcefully entered in the Summer Reading Program, he knew enough to keep his head down, barrel through, and do what he needed to do in order to survive. He also resolved that none of the people at home, especially Hermione, would never know what had happened in there. (The librarians were not human. They looked human, but they _were not_ human. The things they'd had to do in order to escape. . . *shiver*.)

That was how Harry got involved in the War for Night Vale. He became one of Tamika Flynn's protégés. He didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, he was glad that someone had finally decided to train him to fight (because it was obvious he would need to fight Voldemort and his followers eventually). On the other, no one here was going to use magic here, and he was apparently going to fight for a city that he hadn't even known about until, like, a month ago.


	4. The Bloke on the Radio

Another thing that fed Harry's previously starved and suppressed Slytherin side was listening to the radio. At first, the wizard assumed the man speaking was being completely sincere and was just a bit daft. This impression was reinforced by his experiences in the wizarding world at large. Most wizards he had met were like that.

But then a few of the kids in the Book Club explained a few things to him, and suddenly he was hearing doublespeak. The bloke on the radio (Cecil, the man's name was Cecil) was somehow saying one thing with his words and tone of voice while _communicating_ the exact opposite. He was expressing his opinions and protecting himself with plausible deniability at the same time.

Harry listened in awe and slow, mounting concern as the man on the radio _communicated_ that things were absolutely horrible at the station, and was subsequently blackmailed by his new boss with his boyfriend and later his niece (and the other girl scouts).

Unfortunately, Cecil's mastery of deadpan made it hard for Harry to tell when the man was being serious or not. He still didn't know what to think about a grown man squealing like a teenage girl over something cute, especially when his tone suddenly turned dangerous (almost Griffindorish) when talking about the exact same thing after it mauled his cat. (Understandable, but still. The whiplash was horrible.)


	5. Fighting and Strange Magic Doors

Harry Potter was fighting alongside a bunch of teens and preteens with nothing but books and knives for people he barely knew who refused to do anything but watch. It was . . . frustrating. He was also filled with a strange feeling that was similar to deja-vu but also completely different. Like, instead of feeling that he was experiencing something he had already experienced before, he felt as though the same thing would happen in the future, and perhaps continue to happen in the future, if something didn't change.

But he kept fighting anyway, in the background instead of in the lead or perfectly alone (which somehow felt very off and yet very right at the same time), until the inevitably failed, because they were a small group of kids fighting against a large corporation.

They were captured and put in prison cells. Harry spent two weeks going over every single spell he could remember and ruing the fact that he had been such a lazy student before. He had somehow managed to avoid blatantly using magic so far, but the way things were going, breaking the Statute of Secrecy was probably going to be the least of his concerns.

Suddenly, there were all these old oak doors appearing out of nowhere with masked warriors and crazy beings that looked like angels coming through them, and them he was swept up in a war (that weird reverse deja-vu was back). He started shooting spells left and right at the terrifying office workers, occasionally bashing their heads in with a book if they got too close. If anyone noticed he was suddenly doing the impossible with a stick, they didn't comment (except for the bloke on the radio, he comments on everything).

There was a horrible light that seemed to be burning through reality. The masked warriors and angelic beings went back through the old oak doors which all slammed shut behind them and vanished at the same time. Then, a different door materialized in front of Harry. It had his name on it, along with a few other last names tacked on for good measure: Harry James Potter Black Fleamont Peverell.

He was turning the handle before he could even wonder whether it was a _good idea_ to open a door his name on it. Darkness swallowed him.


	6. The Other Side

Ok, I finally figured out that you have to write author's notes in with the rest of the chapter, which is a bit annoying to me, but whatever. Anyway, I feel like I should apologize for not following my own policy on posting stories. While technically this story is finished, it ends on a horrible cliffhanger. I was originally going to jump right into a sequel, but my inspiration unexpectedly dried up practically overnight.

So, I decided to post what would have been the first chapter of the next story here instead, so you at least know what was going to happen next. Sorry again.

The one night Mundungus Fletcher decided it wouldn't hurt anything if he was a few minutes late was the night that everything fell apart. Mrs. Figg watched in horror as a fuzzy (indistinct as opposed to fluffy) hooded figure she assumed was a dementor grabbed Harry and disappeared in a flash of swirling darkness. As soon as she got the fat muggle boy, Dudley, situated in his own house with chocolate, she made several emergency fire calls.

An emergency Order Meeting was called. Everyone was understandably upset. The duty of guarding a small crystal ball in a room full of similar crystal balls was temporarily set aside in in favor of desperately searching for the boy-who-lived. The only thing any of them knew (apart from Mrs. Figgs account, of course) was that Harry was still alive, because the blood wards around number 4 Privet Drive were still active.

Thirty frantic days later, the boy himself walked through the front door of a house he shouldn't have been able to find. His clothes were dirty and blood splattered. He held his wand in one hand, and a large book in the other. There was a heliotrope amulet around his neck. Hedwig sat proudly and apparently unruffled on his shoulder. He was also stumbling around in his own personal darkness, as if what was clearly visible to everyone else in the house was being withheld from him. Luckily, Albus Dumbledore was there to whisper the super Secret address into Harry's ear.


End file.
